Convenience stores in the United States don’t have a particularly good reputation (for the most part) when it comes to culinary offerings, unless high cuisine for you consists of Doritos, Gatorade and a hot dog that has been sitting in a warming case for hours.

But in Japan, convenience stores (known as konbini) are entirely different, offering a wide variety of fresh foods to go, including modern staples like onigiri rice balls and sandoitchi, or sandos, which come on shokupan, a sliced milk bread.

Sandos have become a bit of a cultural phenomenon — and even a tourist must-do — over the past decade as people mix in quick and flavorful to-go meals with high-end sushi or soba noodles. The most common sandos are egg salad, but there are also fruit-and-cream, chicken katsu and other variations. They’re typically served with the crusts cut off.

“This is a best-in-the-universe treat, and you can eat it at a 7-Eleven,” said Gil Asakawa, a longtime Denver journalist, author and food historian who has visited Japan regularly and eaten his share of sandwiches there. “I actively crave the egg salad sandos.”

But the key is the bread. “It’s soft and pillowy and sweet, but not too sweet,” said Asakawa, who moved to the U.S. with his family as a child. “It’s the bread I grew up eating in Japan.”

The Portuguese introduced bread to Japan in the 16th century. But like many Asian cultures, the Japanese relied on rice, not just for sustenance but as a source of pride and community. So bread stayed in the background. But after World War II, the U.S. government, which occupied Japan, imported vast amounts of wheat, both as a way to ease the hunger crisis in the post-war country and to help U.S. farmers sell surplus crops. At the same time, the U.S. mandated a system of school lunches for children — one that relied heavily on bread.

Standard American white bread didn’t suit the palates of many Japanese people, so bakers there “tweaked it,” Asakawa explained, by adding dairy — milk, cream or butter — along with eggs and even sugar to make it sweeter and fluffier. The result was shokupan, a rich, soft bread with a golden exterior that is often sliced thick. It rapidly became a staple. In fact, people in Japan today spend more money on bread than on rice, according to recent reports.

While Americans who have been to Japan may have tried sandos on shokupan, they haven’t jumped across the Pacific Ocean with the same urgency as ramen or sushi. But that may change soon, especially since 7-Elven, which sells sandos in Japan, acknowledged in July that it plans to bring rice balls, ramen, sandos and other Japanese offerings to some stores in the United States. (Egg salad sandos have recently been spotted in some 7-Elevens in California.)

In Denver, they’ve been rare — with the biggest splash made when the Austin-based popup Sandoitchi comes to town to sell its highly photogenic and cheffed-up versions of sandos for a few weeks at a time at The Source Hotel & Market Hall.

There also have been some local versions, including those at Tokyo Premium Bakery in Denver and The Enchanted Oven in Broomfield, both of which make shokupan as well.

The Enchanted Oven only makes sandos occasionally since it isn’t located in a busy lunch area, but owner Maki Fairbanks, who founded the bakery in 2020 with her husband, Rod Stephens, bakes shokupan every morning. The process takes two days.

“First, we make a starter with just yeast, bread flour and water and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. During this time, water absorption develops gluten. In the morning, we add other ingredients and knead the dough in a planetary mixer, which creates more gluten. We then proof the dough, divide it, let it rest, shape, proof and finally bake,” Fairbanks explained in an email.

Currently, The Enchanted Oven bakes 25-40 long loaves per week. Some of them go to sandwich shops, while others are divided into regular-sized loaves for retail customers.

The process is “tedious,” however, “so we have to charge more than some of the other bakeries and Asian supermarkets. But our shokupan is very special,” Fairbanks added.

When the store does make sandos, they’re usually egg salad, pork cutlet and fruit. “My recommendation is our fruit salad sandwich, which uses my secret Chantilly cream recipe,” Fairbanks said, rather than the heavy whipped cream used by other Japanese bakers.

At Kumoya, an 11-month-old restaurant in Denver’s Lower Highland neighborhood, the eclectic menu highlights both traditional sushi and more modern, izakaya-style dishes. But it also features a rotating, seasonal sando served on house-made shokupan.

Most of the guests let the chefs do the ordering, in what Kumoya chef Corey Baker calls “true omakase fashion,” while others prefer to take on the ordering themselves. “We love to cater to every dining experience and push culinary boundaries within those experiences.” That said, Baker doesn’t want anyone to break the bank in order to fill up. “I personally have had many omakase dinners around the world in which I am left hungry afterward, and grab a burger or something more substantial on the way home. The sando is my way of leaving the customer satiated.”